Leverj, a non-custodial derivatives platform based on an Ethereum sidechain, announced on Tuesday their cooperation with leading industry participants to support the launch and marketing of its exchange.

The exchange offers perpetual swaps for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), accepting both Tether (USDT) and Dai (DAI) as margin and settlement currencies.

To achieve meaningful performance for trading, Leverj uses its in-house Plasma-based scaling solution, Gluon. The system was optimized specifically for high-performance non-custodial trading. Like other Plasma-based systems, it relies on the security of the Ethereum chain to guarantee the safety of the funds.

To ensure a successful launch, Leverj enlisted the help of some major industry participants to provide marketing and liquidity support. Brave New Coin, a crypto analytics company, is the project’s main backer. It will provide assistance with the go-to market strategy, while its sister company Techemy Capital is a major investor. CoinShares Capital Markets will provide liquidity and market making services on the platform.

The platform expects to onboard crypto traders who wish to trade derivatives without losing custody of their funds. The platform is integrated with MetaMask, though entering the Gluon network requires additional action before beginning to trade. In a conversation with Cointelegraph, CEO of Techemy Capital Fran Strajnar shared his excitement:

“DeFi derivatives have been the dream since before DeFi was a word, and the Leverj team has been exploring scalability tech to power derivatives for a number of years. The platform is super fast like a centralized exchange but with all the benefits of non-custodial and purely on-chain.”

Leverj is entering a field that is expected to soon become quite crowded. Derivatives platforms for DeFi have existed so far but failed to pick up significant traction in light of the performance limitations of the Ethereum mainnet.

As competition is still far from settled in the centralized derivatives market, DeFi platforms are looking to alternative solutions for providing a competitive product that also benefits from the usefulness of self-custody.